In Heavy Rotation

Chris Cornell has died and I had no idea how much this inevitable day would affect me. Especially to the degree of this tightening of my chest and tumble of my stomach.

It was 1994. I was eight years old. I would sneakily watch MTV to see all of the grunge music videos. One of the first music videos I can vividly remember was Soundgarden’s Black Hole Sun video. The melting doll both haunted my mind and resonated for a child growing up in the sweltering heat of an Arizona summer.

Back in 2006, when I began my adventure in radio, I joined a family at an alternative rock radio station. This place was the home of Temple of the Dog, Soundgarden, Chris’s solo work and Audioslave. I distinctly remember programming time blocks, twenty-four hours a day, with at least one song from any one of his remarkably powerful collections of musical prowess. I quickly landed myself in a committed, intimate relationship with his brilliance. His pain. His intellect.

I was fortunate enough to sit in the studio during a call-in interview. It was the summer of 2007, during the push of his latest solo project Carry On. I can’t recall a single track from the record, but I do recall how that was the very moment I got the privilege of hearing the depth of thought that this man embodied. The kindness that enveloped the pain. He had an envy-inducing, confident commitment to self-expression and conversation. The kind of envy that motivates you to explore your you-ness. Maybe three minutes of the hour long call made it to air, but I wouldn’t have spent that hour in my day any other way.

Something in the way he wails, in all of those octaves he was gifted, will never falter or fade.